| Josephinist Policies Regarding the Churches, Education, and Censorship | 3. JOSEPH II AND ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM | 4. THE ESTATES' FIRST REFORM MOVEMENT |
The reforms associated with Josephinism were of varying merit, and at times showed poor tactics. In any event, they gave rise to many-sided opposition in Transylvania. In the context of social strata, it has to be noted that the landowning nobility felt deeply {2-732.} offended by the emperor's decision to avoid massive reprisals after the 1784 uprising, and to satisfy himself with the execution of the three rebel leaders. (The nobles did not take into account the insurgents who died while serving a sentence of forced labour.) They tended to disapprove of the provision granting freedom of movement to villeins, as well of other measures regarding villeins, partly because they considered them impracticable. The launching of land surveys made the nobility apprehensive that taxation might be extended to them. Neither the middle class nor free peasants harboured grievances other than those that they might have shared with the rest of their particular 'nation'. The villeins felt more dissatisfied, for the problem of socage remained unresolved.
From the point of view of the 'nations' constituted as estates, Josephinism brought the abolition of their collective privileges. Saxons were the most affected, for only their 'nation' had enjoyed self-government and a certain financial autonomy. Now they had to accept the fact that the Romanians enjoyed concivilitas. From the point of view of cultural 'nations', the Hungarians were offended by the introduction of German as the official language (all the more because Hungarian civil servants were more conversant in Latin than in German), while the Romanians did not find their aspirations fulfilled by the practical results of the reforms that favoured them.
Finally, from the perspective of the religious denominations, the Catholic Church resented the Edict of Tolerance, the new leniency toward apostasy, and the dissolution of monastic orders, as well as the constraints on the bishop's ecclesiastical authority and his exclusion from political office. The Protestants, on the other hand, resented the fact that the Edict of Tolerance had not restored full equality of rights. Fearing that the educational reforms would trim the autonomy and change the spirit of their schools, they — and particularly the Calvinists — showed strong opposition to the Norma Regia; the reforms of their Church-affiliated school system served to display both independence and a willingness to modernize. {2-733.} As before, the Orthodox Church was merely tolerated, and it was not covered by the suspension of the prohibition of apostasy.
All of these factors contributed to the emergence in Transylvania of a movement opposed to Josephinism and motivated by an inextricable blend of conservative and reformist tendencies. Although it began to unfold earlier in the decade, the opposition reared its head in 1787, with the estates' memoranda. All three 'national' elites participated in the drafting of the memoranda. Most of the Gubernium's councillors were involved in the discussion of the drafts, as were the chairman and vice-chairman of the royal bench, Pál Bethlen and Simon Kemény, the retired Gubernium councillor István Daniel, and, representing the Saxons, Gubernium councillor Rosenfeld as well as the diarist Heydendorf. The debate went on for months but failed to produce a common submission. The cautious Saxons were slow to compile a list of their grievances, and presented them separately, after the other two 'nations' had taken the step. László Türi and János Cserei drafted the complaints of Hungarians and Székelys. Rosenfeld did the same for the Saxons, but it proved unacceptable to the latter, and the final draft was prepared by Michael Soterius, the secretary to the Gubernium.
The Hungarians and Székelys based their petition on the tenet that the estates were organically linked to the Holy Crown of Hungary, and thus shared legislative powers with the king. Yet, argued the petition, the basic laws and structure of the state had been overturned by Joseph II. The system of three 'nations' had been abolished, and concivilitas had given newcomers equality of rights with the estates. The counties lost their former sphere of authority. The petition voiced particular concern about the introduction of German as the official language, which made Hungarians strangers in their own land and foreshadowed the loss of their liberties.
With regard to the Horea rebellion, the memorandum argued that its root cause was the proliferation of administrative reforms, {2-734.} which had raised unrealistic expectations among the common people. The uprising was precipitated not by the brutality of landowners but by the campaign to sign up frontier guards. Moreover, the villeins would only be emboldened by the leniency shows towards despicable criminals and by the abolition of capital punishment. Property and lives would not be secure, claimed the petition, until the prestige and authority of officials and landowners were restored. In arguing against the villeins' freedom of movement, it touched on a sensitive issue by noting that soil-bound peasants were more likely to engage in construction and to improve and fertilize the land. (The argument had some validity, for less than twenty years had passed since the great internal migrations, and Transylvanian agriculture was in the midst of shifting from animal husbandry to the cultivation of land.) The petition made another potent, if somewhat misleading point in deploring the villeins' conviction that their uprising had led to the grant of freedom of movement. With good political tactics, the authors also deplored that the problem of socage had not been resolved, and pointed out the real and alleged weaknesses of the government's initiatives. They objected to the March 1787 decree concerning taverns, noting that seigniorial farms had exclusive rights to tavern revenues, and that villeins could share in the latter only with the express permission of their landowner. The nobles also objected to a royal ordinance, issued 14 June 1786, which ended the practice of leasing out the collection of tithes to landowners and instructed the Treasury to collect this levy in kind.
In regard to taxes, the memorandum's basic grievances were that parliament had no part in setting the rates (in fact, the diet had not been convened for some twenty-five years) and that the new tax system flouted the principle of onus non inhaeret fundo. The major complaint in the military sphere concerned the formation of the frontier guard, which also dated from the pre-Josephine period. In the case of the Székely frontier guard, the authors protested at certain {2-735.} illegalities: Székelys could not be asked to both serve as soldiers and pay taxes, and the creation of the frontier guard had upset the established legal order, notably with respect to property rights, in the Székelyföld. The establishment of the Romanian frontier guard, on the other hand, incurred grave risks: the Romanians might use their weapons for domestic insurgency or join with their ethnic cousins in Wallachia and the Banat to attack Transylvania. (It should be noted that Romanian border guards from the Banat took part in the suppression of the Horea rebellion, and that there was no evidence in this period of any plans by the Romanians of Transylvania, the Banat, and Wallachia to join in armed action; even in 1848–49, their only involvement was in the Projet de Pacification.)
Neither Pál Bethlen and Simon Kemény, nor the sharp-eyed jurists who helped draft the memorandum had trouble in pinpointing the weaknesses of the new judicial system. It was too complicated, making the proceedings more drawn out than in the earlier system. The district courts of appeals were superfluous. With regard to the new civil and criminal codes, the main objection was that the laws of Transylvania may only be modified by joint action of the ruler and the estates. There was ample grounds for complaint with regard to education. The Catholics' main protest was at the takeover by the state of their Church foundations; due to the closure of a number of seminaries and residences, students had fallen in number and become more 'undisciplined'. (The memorandum also noted problems in the schooling of the children of Székely border guards.) The Protestants' basic grievance concerned the unification of the educational system. More generally, the memorandum deplored what it considered an excessive emphasis on the teaching of German in public schools as well as the uneven distribution of funds in public education.
The authors of the memorandum also considered it necessary to remind the monarch of the special rights of Székelys. In their {2-736.} case, the jus regium was not applicable; the property of Székelys who died without direct descendants passed not to the crown but to more distant cousins or, wanting that, to neighbours; even in the case of a nota, the Treasury could only claim moveable property; and when the male line became extinct, property rights passed to the female line.
To all appearances, the memorandum spoke with the voice of the conservative estates. The emphasis on the shared right of monarch and estates to make laws, on the diminution of nobility rights inherent in Joseph II's policy regarding villeinage, on the flouting (as early as 1754) of the principle of onus non inhaeret fundo, on the harm done to Székely rights by the establishment of the new frontier guard, on the objections of Catholics and Protestants to the consolidation of public education — all this reflected a disposition to defend vested interests. Yet developments over the next five years and in the Reform era cast a different light over the significance of these grievances. Over time, the estates's constitutional right to political participation would facilitate the emergence of a civil society. The Protestants' concerns about the education reform were inspired not by some reactionary spirit, but by a wish to preserve a system that was as 'enlightened' as that promoted by the government. Much of the criticism aimed at the government's clumsiness and the unrealistic character of the reforms was fully justified.
Since the memorandum had been drafted with the knowledge, and indeed active participation of Transylvania's political elite, it might have been expected that the nobility would adopt a similar political platform after 1790. That was not the case. When that elite came to enjoy greater freedom of action, it showed an admirable sense of responsibility in assessing the results of Josephinism, for it did so with greater realism than at the time of the memorandum.
A petition containing the Saxons' own grievances was completed in late 1787 and submitted separately. It was a careful assessment {2-737.} of the harm that had been done to their privileges. They deplored that the Treasury treated the Királyföld as its domain, seized some municipal properties, and demanded retroactive payment of the census Sancti Martini; that their autonomous government, the Universitas, had been abolished and dispossessed of property; and that the new system of local government harmed their interests. Concivilitas, which forced Saxons to share with Romanians land that had already been assigned, featured prominently among their grievances. They also complained about the additional tax burdens imposed on towns and the judicial reform. The Saxons' memorandum was more measured in tone than that of the other two 'nations', but it also reflected a more conservative tendency.
The emperor's reaction to the memoranda was predictable. He instructed the Hungarian–Transylvanian chancellor, Count Károly Pálffy, to issue reprimands to Pál Bethlen, Simon Kemény, and a few other aristocrats, and, among the Saxons, to Gubernium councillor Rosenfeld, Soterius, Heydendorf, and the mayor of Szeben, Hirling. The opposition movement nevertheless continued to grow, and it was only strengthened by effects of the Turkish war, such as the military requisitions and armed incursions. Yet even within Transylvania, it was not the domestic opposition that provoked the eventual fall of the Josephinist system. The roots of that collapse lay in the revolt in the Low Countries, the setbacks suffered in the Turkish war, the strained relations with Prussia, and internal discontent, notably in Hungary. The ensuing decade would reveal what survived of Josephinism, in Transylvania and the rest of the empire, and what did not. The system ended in melodramatic fashion when Joseph II, by then a moribund and broken man, issued the Restitutionsedikt to rescind a whole series of earlier decrees. In the event, Josephinism took quite a different turn from what the monarch anticipated in his edict.
| Josephinist Policies Regarding the Churches, Education, and Censorship | 3. JOSEPH II AND ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM | 4. THE ESTATES' FIRST REFORM MOVEMENT |